Collected Tech Tips – Month by Month Process and Photography Tips from the International Leica Society

January 2023

• If you are shooting with ISO 400 black and white film in bright sun, use an ND filter or color filter to permit a shallower depth of field (a more open aperture)

• If you are shooting with ISO 400 color film in bright sun, use an ND filter to permit a shallower depth of field (a more open aperture)

•  The ‘bells & whistles’ of modern autofocus can be great tools to assist us in getting the image but all one really needs in many situations is to be found by knowing the ins and outs of the Exposure Triangle: Aperture, Shutter Speed and ISO. They are the foundation of image independence as a photographer!

December 2022

When street shooting with your M camera, keep your camera in hand, pre-focused and use aperture priority exposure.

When street shooting and approaching a possible subject, wake up the camera with a slight tap on the shutter release button.

If you cannot remember the “sunny 16 rule” try starting with 1/500s at f/8 for a sunny day at ISO 100.

November 2022

Best pre-focus technique with an M camera + 35mm lens for street photography:  Select f/5.6 or f/8 and set 6-8 feet focus distance.  If you don’t have time to accurately focus, you will come close!

Best pre-focus technique with an M camera + 50mm lens for street photography:  Select f/8 or f/11 and set about 10 feet focus distance.  If you don’t have time to accurately focus, you will come close!

Protecting your M or Q camera:  Try using the Leica neoprene case M.  It is waterproof, cushions the camera a bit and, when you are using the camera, can be wadded up and stuffed in your pocket.

October 2022

Boring skies can often be quickly fixed: In Lightroom or Adobe Camera Raw, select the sky in the new masking tool and carefully apply Dehaze and reduce (darken) blue luminance in the HSL panel

To adjust a scenic foreground in Lightroom and Adobe Camera Raw:  Using the new masking tool, select the sky, then invert the sky selection and make your adjustments in the foreground.

For your digital Leica: To help you avoid unrecoverable highlight detail, set your camera exposure compensation to a value between -0.5 and -1.0 EV. 

June 2022

New IDR Feature

Leica has a new IDR (Intelligent Dynamic Range) feature that boosts detail in shadow areas. This only works for JPEG images, not RAW.

M11 SD Cards

The new M11 may not work well with older SD cards - be sure to use UHS-II fast cards.

Battery Chargers

Aftermarket chargers don’t always work well with Leica batteries. To be sure, use original Leica chargers.

Keep The Boxes

Selling your used Leica lenses or cameras, you’ll often get a better price if you have the original packaging.

May 2022

Dust Spots

If you remove dust spots in Lightroom Classic, you can apply the same removal set to all the photos you took at the same time with “Sync Settings” - search for this online.

Monochrom Highlights

It’s very important on Monochrom cameras to not blow out the highlights since they are not recoverable in the same way that color images afford. Try underexposing with -0.3 or -0.7 stops by default.

Rule of Thirds

Many know about the “rule of thirds” but take it as “suggestion of thirds” - not every photo is best composed using this technique.

One Lens Challenge

Give yourself a challenge the next time you go photographing - mount only one lens and don’t take others. Give yourself the chance to really explore one focal length in depth.

April 2022

RAW or JPEG for Mono?

If you’re shooting a Leica monochrom camera, does it make a difference if you shoot RAW or JPEG? YES. JPEG will still process the image in-camera and apply compression as well as output an 8-bit file. For best quality, shoot RAW.

When should I shoot RAW+JPEG?

If you often share your photos online or on social, you can save some time by shooting RAW+JPEG. This will take up more space on your SD cards than RAW alone. You can create JPEGs on the computer, but this take a little extra time.

What’s the right White Balance setting?

There’s no single answer for this - it depends on the shooting environment, but AUTO is a very good choice in most cases. If you’re shooting only RAW, then this setting is irrelevant - you’ll be choosing color balance on the computer.

What’s the slowest shutter speed I should choose?

For most handheld shooting, try to stick with shutter speeds of 1/125 sec. or faster to minimize camera shake. Use a higher ISO if needed to get these speeds.

March 2022

Mac Studio

The new Mac Studio computer is here. For most photographers, the top-end M1 Ultra is not the right price-performance combo. Best is M1 Max.

Visoflex 2

The Leica Visoflex 2 electronic viewfinder, introduced with the new M11 camera will work on the M10 family of cameras with new firmware updates available from Leica.

M11 SD Cards

The new M11 supports UHS-II SD cards (two rows of contacts on the back). These transfer data much faster than UHS-I cards. You also need a UHS-II reader to take full advantage.

February 2022

Label Your Stuff

Investing in a labeler, like a Brother P-Touch, is a good idea.  Placing a label on your camera with contact information and offering a reward increases the chances of getting your camera back if it is misplaced.  Of course, a thief may pay no attention, but others may help.  Get some transparent labels with white print (for black bodies) and put it somewhere visible.  On M cameras, you can also put one inside the bottom plate.  On silver bodies, use transparent/black.   Don’t use your address but do use your phone or email.  Something like this:

John Smith, Reward for Return, +1 XXX-XXX-XXXX

If you want to do even more, print out a copy of the label and each time you change SD cards, take a photo of the label, so it will be on the card as an image.

p.s.  This works for other objects as well, but if you want to put a label your phone, you can’t use that phone’s number (doh!).  Use a landline number or someone else’s number or email.   (I have had a phone returned to me after it was left in a cab).

M11 transfer

All the M11 reviews we have seen mention that at this time M11 images cannot be transferred directly from camera to a Mac (as opposed to an IOS device).   While it is true that the M11 will not appear as a drive in Mac Finder, photos can indeed be transferred to an app that supports transfers, such as Adobe Bridge and, presumably, Lightroom.  The camera needs to be in “PTP” mode under the USB settings and connected to the computer.  In Adobe Bridge you need to select "File/Import from Device” and a dialog box that looks like the below will appear.  This one is after files had been imported.  You can select where to save, etc.

Update your Copyright information for 2022

M11 Firmware Update

When updating your M11 firmware, be sure to remove the SD card right after the update is complete and you turn off the camera. Leaving it in will cause a loop.

January 2022

No light meter?

Sunny day, ISO 100 use 1/500 at f/8. In shadows, bump to 1/125. Interior - 1/30 at f/2.8. Underexpose positive film, overexpose negative film (slightly).

Collapsible Lenses

Some collapsible Leica lenses extend too far into the newer digital bodies and can damage the sensor. Wrap a rubber band or O-ring around the collapsible sliding part to prevent the lens from fully contracting. 

Group Shots

We love shooting our Leica lenses wide open, but for group shots this will leave some faces out of focus. Try shooting groups at f/5.6 or f/8. You can always blur the background later.

Cold Weather

When shooting for hours in cold weather, keep spare batteries in your pocket and rotate them into the camera every 15-30 minutes. Cold batteries die faster.

December 2021

50mm Noctilux lens hood

Some find the 60mm lens hood for the f/1 Noctilux lenses very hard to take on and off due to the tiny spring catches. Alternate 60mm caps are non-existent. You can buy a step-up ring from 60mm to 62mm and there are lots of 3rd party 62mm lens caps that are much easier to use.

Canon Software

Canon Studio Pro v. 225 works on Mac OS 11.6.1 Big Sur (and allegedly, OS 12 Monterrey too) with Lightroom Classic

Leica Q2 Holster

The Leica Holster Q2 is well-designed product, with an open-front design and safety strap that folds back and holds magnetically. It’s designed to use with or without Q2 handgrips. If you’re looking for one with a front flap, check out the Oberwerth design.

November 2021

New MacBook Pros

The new XDR displays on the MacBook Pro 14 and 16 are capable of incredible brightness and contrast ratios. While this might be great for gaming and other uses, make sure you calibrate these displays for photography use so that the screen matches your prints.

SL2 IBIS

If you’re using a lens adapter to mount non-L lenses on your SL2, be sure to tell the camera what lens is closest to yours if you want IBIS (stabilization) to be active.

New Canon Print Software

Canon has a new software product called Professional Print & Layout v 1.2.1 released 16th October 2020. This is a replacement to Print Studio Pro for the PRO-1000.

October 2021

Multiple Monitors on M1 Macs

M1 Mac? Turns out you CAN run more than 1 external monitor. You need DisplayLinkManager 1.5.0 software and a USB-A to HDMI adapter such as the StarTech USB32HD4K, and a USB-A port (dongle).

Backup Strategy

For offsite storage, purchase a few additional external drives, clone to them, and keep them offsite in various locations. Update them monthly. Various cloud storage solutions, if you have lots of data, are often too slow to be useful. External drives are cheaper than ever now. For a working drive of this year's images, use fast SSDs (1000 mbps or higher).

Lightroom Help is Here

When you have a Lightroom Classic question, where do you look? Do you spend hours searching the web? From now on, use this book/ebook... "Adobe Lightroom Classic – The Missing FAQ".

Amazing New Lightroom Feature

Coming in October for Lightroom Classic: Select Sky and Select Subject auto masking powered by AI!

September 2021

Scan Old and New Photos

The scanning service GoPhoto has merged with ScanCafe and they do an excellent job scanning virtually any format of photo, film, or video for reasonable prices. Dig out those family treasures and discover your past.

Smaller is Safer

Rather than buy one or two large capacity SD cards, buy several smaller capacity cards. That way if one goes bad or is lost you limit the number of images you might lose.

Invest in Yourself as Much as in New Gear

One of the best ways to up your game is to invest in training with experts. For less than the price of a new lens or camera, you’ll improve the quality of every photo you take, and maybe even those you took in the past. Leica Akademie is a great place to start, and as a member of LHSA you get a discount (USA).

Get Low

Get a new perspective on your images by shooting from a low position. Mount your camera securely on a tripod or monopod, set the self-timer on 5 or 10 seconds, then hold it just above ground level when the shutter fires. It takes practice but you’ll be pleasantly surprised with the results.

August 2021

Sync Every Device

If you’re looking for software that automatically syncs your photos across all your devices (Macs, PCs, tablets, Android phones, iPhones, etc.) check out Mylio. It does this without using the cloud. It’s a catalog and editor too.

Corroded Sensors

Leica no longer fixes corroded M9 or M9M sensors. MaxMax.com and Kaloarivision.com are two companies that can do sensor fixes.

The new M1 Macs

They are wicked fast, and the M1 with 16GB RAM is more than enough to run everything much faster than even my old Intel i7 with 64GB RAM.  PS and LR support the M1. Apps running under Rosetta also run incredibly fast, and in my opinion run faster than on my i9 MBP. I also have the base config MacBook Air with 8GB RAM and we ran a stress test on it, running an incredible number of apps and videos simultaneously. It never slowed down.

Forget the Caps

Leave the lens caps at home. It’s too easy to miss the important shot because your lens cap was on – for M cameras especially (the optical viewfinder) and you may not notice the cap in place.

July 2021

Battery Sharing

The Leica Q2, Q2 Monochrom, SL2, and SL2-S all use the same battery. The SL and SL-2 can charge in the camera with USB-C, so if you use a Q and SL2, no need to take the external Leica charger with you.

Group Selfies

Group photo with you in it too? Set the interval time to take 10-15 shots, one second apart. When everyone is ready, press the shutter, join the group and 10-15 seconds later you have several shots. The first few will have you entering the frame, but the chances of one or two frames with everyone’s eyes open and looking good are greatly increased.

Wash Me!

Microfiber lens cleaning cloths (and lens cleaning fluid) are a great way to gently clean lenses and viewfinders. You can and should wash these cloths and air dry them from time to time.

Easier Lens Mounting

When mounting a lens onto a M body, it is much easier and safer if the lens is pre-set to minimum focus distance. It avoids early engagement with the rangefinder 'roller'.

June 2021

Easy Mac Backup

A super-easy method for backing up original photos (and all files) on the Mac without buying a cloud subscription is to use and app called SuperDuper and an external drive. 

Where Did My Profiles Go?

When updating Mac OS, you will likely lose printer Manufacturer paper profiles (Epson in particular).   The solution is to go to System Preferences/Printers and Scanners and delete the photo printer.  Then add it back (recommended to select the Manufacturer’s drivers and not “Airprint”) and restart your system.  This will restore all the original paper profiles.

Scanner Fix

If your Nikon LS4000 stops working,  don’t panic.  Contact Gleb Shtengel (gleb@shtengel.com).   He has the ability to fix almost any problem, including bad boards, at extremely reasonable prices.  A fix is usually around $200.

Speedy Drive Setup

Faster image access: two external hard drives configured in a RAID 0 array will speed up image access. Don’t forget to keep a separate backup of all the images because if one of the disks in a RAID 0 array fails, you will lose everything. 

May 2021

Lens Shades and Series VII Filters

Did you know that both the 12504 and 12501 lens shades for the 35 Summilux Canada and the 21 Super-Angulon f3,4 (respectively) can take Series VII filters in the shade itself? The Super-Angulon f3,4M lens can also accept e48 thread-in filters, but if you have old Series VII filters kicking around, put them to good use!

Close and Closer

The newly announced 35mm APO M lens from Leica is a technological wonder. It close-focuses to 0.3M. But don’t forget, the 35mm SL lens close-focuses to 10 inches (on the SL, SL2 and SL2-S of course).

Repair Discounts

If you need service on your Leica camera or lens, your LHSA membership entitles you to 15% off (USA) and of course, Leica will do a great job. If their backlog is too long, you may consider sending your gear to Don Goldberg (dagcamera.com) or Youxin Ye (yyecamera.com) who both do excellent work. We’

Color Space

Many people ask about the difference between sRGB and AdobeRGB color spaces. The shortest explanation is to use sRGB if you will only ever view the image on a screen. If you intend to print (someday) then use AdobeRGB.